


It's So Easy Taking Care of You

by Kibbers



Category: The Killing
Genre: Canon Compliant, Caring, Conversations, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, Kissing, Secretly Caring About Each Other, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 10:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17999795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kibbers/pseuds/Kibbers
Summary: Linden ain't easy to care for, except if she don't know that's what Holder's doing. Then, it's the easiest thing in the world.





	It's So Easy Taking Care of You

Holder hadn’t taken second notice of her at first. She was on the outs, you know? Taking her fine self and kicking off to California. She wasn’t sticking around, so Holder figured it was fine, the first day, to tag along. See how the professionals did it. Watched as she barged her way into that park, watched as she stood stock still, like she knew exactly what she was lookin’ for but hadn’t seen it yet. The girls with the fishing poles. The lake and the car and the trunk. Fuck, the trunk. Linden was steel through it. Stone cold killah. 

But, she was supposed to be airplaning away from this place. Peacing out. He had promised her she would be. 

The first time she missed it, it wasn’t no biggie. Just getting too wrapped up. Big Man didn’t trust Holder. Whatever whatever. Couldn’t do anything ‘bout that. He’d let them do their thing while he did his and she’d be jettin off in no time. 

The second time, he’d already begun to get the picture. She wanted to be the type of honey to get that bling and sun-soak in California, but she wasn’t cut like that. 

Still, she was pretending. He got it. Always got a person in your head that you’d like to be, but never would. His was happier. Stable. Showed up to family dinner ‘cause he had a family to eat dinner with. But, reality’s a shithead. He’d never be that Holder. She’d never be that Linden, but he wasn’t going to say that to her. She was already walking around frownin’.

Still, though, she kept talking ‘bout leaving and so he didn’t take it personal when she left him behind over and over again. She was his ride, but only sometimes. Not like, for real.

She stayed and kept on staying and Holder could see the cracks coming through. Wasn’t showing them on purpose. Just, he started to see where to look. If she was still working after dark, he knew she hadn’t eaten dinner. If her phone kept ringing and her lips turned down, Mr. Sonoma was calling and he wasn’t happy ‘bout her staying. Started counting the hours she could have slept from the time he last saw her. Noticed the number of coffee cups on her desk and added an hour more for each one.

Holder grabbed a donut for her one morning because he knew she hadn’t eaten the night before. Didn’t make a thing out of it.  _ Maple bacon, whatever, got one for myself too _ .  _ Here’s some coffee and tell me ‘bout what you found _ . Ain’t no thing if he didn’t make it no thing. She took a bite without looking at the damn thing, holding it upside down and everything, and he couldn’t help a smile. Guessed right. Knew she was starving. Working to the brink. 

Didn’t need his ride passing out and killing the both of them. He was meant to go out with flair, you know. Something special. Surrounded by ladies or somethin. Not at the hands of his new partner, though she was a fine little thing. She’d kill him if she knew he’d thought that. Something to keep to himself fo sho. 

Holder figured he’d just start showing up places, especially after she took the liberty of doing that herself at his NA meeting. He wasn’t angry. Something she should know, if she was sticking around. She didn’t seem to care about rules like stayin outta other people’s business, so he wasn’t going to either. Showed up at the docks. Taking her home after she called him at the casino. Sticking when Jack disappeared. 

“Thanks for being my ride,” Linden said that day. 

“Ain’t no thing,” Holder said.  _ Ain’t no thing, taking care a you _ . 

It was easier, after that, to do what he could. Meals and coffee cups and  _ no I ain’t letting you drive you’ve been awake for three days straight _ . Slowing the car the time she fell asleep against the window. Driving so slow people around him flipped him off. Didn’t give a shit, seeing her looking like that. 

He pulled the car over, let it idle next to some neon lit diner for a little while and let her sleep. Turned the ringer on both their phones off. Laughed as she grumbled, even in her sleep. Was probably busting her way into her crime scene even then. Nah, she wasn’t meant to be california dreaming. She was a growling thing, meant for concrete and gray skies and rain. She knew it too, had to, or she woulda been out of his hair already. 

He let her sleep for an hour before he started back to her dinky little motel, wishing he was brave enough to force her into his place. Into somewhere safer. He worried, you know? Like anyone would. Wished her and Jack had somewhere softer to stay. 

Holder turned the radio up a bit and started to sing just loud enough to see her stir out of the corner of his eye. Comments flew through his head about sleeping beauty and was he really so boring and what not, but he decided to keep his trap shut for once in his goddamn life. He wasn’t bout to tease her for sleeping. Didn’t want her to hesitate about letting her guard down around him. He was an idiot, sure, but not about that. 

She didn’t say anything as she picked up her phone and flipped it open, muttering about something having to do with the case, but when he pulled into a parking space at the motel she paused a moment. Just one second longer, something firing through that big ass brain of hers. Whatever it was, she decided to swallow it.

“Get some sleep,” he called as she climbed out.

“Night, Holder,” she said, smiling an almost smile at him as she shut the door. Holder sat for a few minutes after she disappeared, just making sure nothing shady happened to his lady. He thought of her almost smile and smirked. It was a good look on her. A real good look.

He was always touching her in some way. A hand on the shoulder. A brush of his hips as he skirted past her in the doorway. Knees knocking and coffee-cup fingers. He knew she wasn’t all touchy feely like, but that was how he communicated to the universe. His love language, you know? He tried to hold back, he really did, but he couldn’t help letting his fingers linger on her shoulder, walking too close. Her and her ugly ass sweaters, she was always so warm to the touch.

Once, he knew he lingered too long, came too close into her space by the way she shrank away from him in her chair. 

“I ain’t contagious, you know,” he muttered, pulling back. She was smelling something nice that mornin’. All clean like.

“It’s not-” 

“It’s all good. Didn’t mean it any kind of way,” Holder said back. He turned his attention to the screen, seeing her open her mouth out of the corner of his eye and then shut it again. 

“Not everyone can handle all uh this,” he said gesturing down the length of his torso after she kept starin’. 

“I’m sure,” she said, snickering. There it was, that almost smile. Almost. 

When they went back to her computer screen, she was closer than before. Almost touching him. Almost.

He was grinnin in the computer’s reflection long after he should have been. Yeah, he was an idiot, that was for sure.

On days she was silent while they drove around, Holder let her think he was stupid as he rattled on and on about whatever shit popped into his head. His moms, his sister, his theories on religion. He could tell she was hurting somethin’ fierce inside by the way her mouth pressed thin. By the way she didn’t look at him once. But, she’d quirk her lips every once in awhile. Would snicker. He knew she thought he was batshit, but he didn’t mind. He was just tryin’ to get her out of her head. 

On one of those days, he was coming up empty. Coming up zip. Nada. No smile in sight. He was in the middle of talking about a show he’d watched as a kid, how it scared the shit out of him when the bad guys put some kid’s hand in a blender, when she turned to him suddenly.

“Do you think I’ll ever get on that plane?” she asked.

“We’re going to catch him,” he said. But, she kept on looking at him. Through him. That wasn’t what she was asking and he knew that.

“You want to be the person who gets on that plane,” Holder said. “You know what I’m saying?”

“As per usual,” she said, “you’re going to have to enlighten me.”

“Well, it’s like this, okay? I want to be the guy who shows up on time to family dinner, you know? The guy who’s got a storage locker and a key ring and who knows what brussel sprouts taste like. But, I ain’t. I ain’t ever going to be. That’s a different Holder. It’s nice to think about him sometimes. How he’d settle down with a fine mamma and have little monsters runnin’ around, but reality ain’t like that. I got nowhere to settle in this chest, you know? That’s not  _ me  _ me.”

She frowned at him.

“You want to be a honey in California with your mans and your Jack and your sunshine, but that ain’t the you I know.”

“Who is the me you know?” she asked.

“You a punch-your-way-into-anything kinda girl. You’re all frowning.” He saw her react to that, blinking at him. “Not in a bad way. I happen to be into the frowney thing. But, California don’t frown, you know?”

“The “frowney thing”?” she asked, with a little tiny smile on the corners of her lips.

“Yeah, you know, I like women who aren’t afraid to kick my ass,” he said. “But, that ain’t the point. All I’m saying is you got to know who you are, not who you’d be if everything had gone right because it didn’t and it won’t.” 

Linden was silent, turning to face out the opposite window as the city passed them by. He reached over and tapped her thigh with a finger. “But, don’t listen to me if you don’t want to. I’m an idiot.”

“I don’t think you’re an idiot, Holder,” she said, turning to meet his eyes. She held them. Held them. Brakes. Red light. Commercial on the radio. Chest cut open. Chest, an autopsy. He looked away first. He had to.

“Oh, I see how it is. I get it. You ain’t interested so now you’re going to be all nice to me. Your loss, Linden,” he said, grinning at her all the while.

She rolled her eyes and there was that grin. After a minute passed, she turned to him again. “Honestly, though.”

Holder knew enough to let that hang there between them. An almost compliment, an almost smile, an almost kinda love in Holder’s chest.

There’s a quote, something ‘bout two people falling quickly into an intimacy from which they never recovered or some shit. That’s how it felt to Holder. Started hiding food in his car to pull out during long shifts all casual like. Stopping for bathroom breaks at her favorite coffee shops and then spending a few minutes washing his hands because he didn't actually have to go. Just saw her cup was empty. Just saw her sigh. Knowing she wasn’t going to order food so ordering two orders of french fries and pushing one towards her.

“Ordered too much,” he’d say.

“Again?” she ‘d ask, rolling her eyes at him again.

“Can’t help what I want,” Holder’d say. 

She’d let the fries sit there while Holder talked about some shit, but absentmindedly, she’d start to eat them. Without realizing she was. Holder’d have to hide his grin.

“What?” she’d say, when she caught him. She always did. Maybe he wasn’t so good at hiding his feelings after all. She saw right through him.

“Don’t you worry about it, lil mama. I gots all kinds of secrets up here.” He’d tap his temples and she’d roll her eyes, grinning.

“I’m sure you do,” she’d say, grinnin’.  _ Here’s the secret _ , he’d think, _ it’s easy takin’ care of you. Ain’t no thing at all _ .

He kept it to himself, though. Even after the Rick shit hit the fan. Even after Jack packed his shit and moved to Chicago. He wasn’t about to ruin what they had by being stupid. No matter what Linden said, he was an idiot. Especially when it came to his own sappy ass feelings. He could recognize that. 

He came in one morning to find her asleep at her keyboard and knew she hadn’t left in at least two days, her stupid soft-ass sweater the same one as a few days ago. She must have been deep. Didn’t wake up when he came crashing into the room. Not as he took his jacket and hoodie off and ever so gently slid them under her head so her neck wouldn’t hurt so fucking bad when she woke up.

Holder worked with the lights off all morning. Shut the door and closed the blinds. Put a ‘do not disturb’ sticky note on the door and made himself busy elsewhere. That meant shivering his ass off while he did, but he didn’t mind. 

When he came back that afternoon, soaked to the bone by the rain, Linden was clicking away at her desk. When she saw him, her face fell.

“You’re soaked,” she said.

“That’s kinda what happens when it’s raining,” Holder said.

“You could have just left me,” she said, gesturing to the hoodie and jacket she’d hug over the back of his chair.

“No. I couldn’t have,” he said. “Besides, a little chill is good for me. Boosts the immune system.”

She rolled her eyes, standing as she grabbed her keys off the desk.

“Going somewhere?” he asked.

“Yeah, to get you a change of clothes,” she said. Holder made to protest but she leveled him with a look that told him he ought not to try. “I’m not letting your skinny ass die from pneumonia because of me.”

“I’ll drive,” he said, catching up with her in the hallway. She’d already made room for him. Knew he was going to follow.

“Not a chance. You drive too slow,” she said. “Death’ll catch you before we even get there.”

“Oh snap, Linden’s got jokes,” he said.

She turned to him and grinned, shaking her head. Like he was ridiculous. Like he was an idiot. Like she liked that he was.

True to her word, she drove the both of them to his apartment and followed him all the way inside just to make sure he did as she said. To spite her, he tore his t-shirt off in the living room, but she hardly reacted. Looked at him with the same neutral expression she’d looked at him every other time. 

But, her eyes lingered, trailing down his stomach to the waistband of his jeans. He was sure of it. Okay, like 70% sure of it. 65%. 

“You going to change or should I settle in for a strip show?” Linden asked after he’d stood there doing the calculations.

“You would be so lucky,” he called out, moving into his bedroom. He grabbed a t-shirt off the floor and pulled on a new pair of jeans. Back in the doorway, he did a little shimmy. “I got moves, Linden.”

“I somehow doubt that,” she said, snickering at him from her perch on the edge of the armchair. Almost comfortable. Almost laughing. 

He convinced her to sit. To sip a coffee while he made the two of them lunch. He even put on his apron, much to her amusement. She didn’t say nothin’ just eyed him up and down and smirked. “Like what you see, Linden?”

She didn’t justify that with a response. Just rolled her eyes and sipped at her coffee, but he could see a grin behind her look. His chest tightened. Brakes. Brakes. Hit the goddamn brakes, Holder. Get it together. 

He knew he shouldn’t have tried to kiss her, after all of that. Knew it even as he did it. Knew she deserved better than that. Than his lowest moment. Than her just being there. He knew that’s what she thought. That he didn’t care who it was sitting next to him that day. But, it did matter. Oh fuck it mattered. He blew it. Had to make a joke about not trying to kiss her again just to relieve the tension. His heartbreak. Linden was wrong. He was a goddamn idiot. No doubt, no doubt.

Then shit got messy. Messier. Linden landed herself in that white place with all the drugs and none of herself in her eyes. He wasn’t going to leave her there. Not for a second longer. 

Messier still. The gun and the accusations and the betrayal he could see in her eyes thinking he was something other than he’d always been: just trying to take care of her the only way she’d let him. 

It was a long time, that hurt. Miles and miles, that hurt. Years and years, that hurt.

Then, there she was. Linden with her stupid sweaters, leaning against her stupid car and lookin just as fine as she always did. Better, even. Absence and the heart and all of that shit.

And yeah, home was them in their dumbass cars. Home was them, together. That's what he’d been saying all those years with the donuts and the coffee and the way he touched her shoulder. She hadn’t been listening then, just running. Always running.

He asked her to stay. Couldn’t help it. Yes, this city was a city of the dead. But, they were people who belonged in it. Rain didn’t feel like this anywhere else. They weren’t the kind of people with ghosts that stayed behind, you know? Why not stay where they were buried? See their graves and remember they weren’t real. Where else could they be anything but themselves?

“Stay,” he asked and she didn’t of course, because she’d never done a thing he asked a single time in her goddamn life. Staying was a kind of running, but so was running. So was goodbye and rear view mirrors and silhouettes in them.

Holder tried to shake it off. Tried to shake her off once and for all. All her pieces clinging to him. Wrapped around his fingers. His chest. 

By the time he locked up that night, he was drowning a little. A lot. Gasping for air. He hadn’t been expecting to see her. Hadn’t been ready to say goodbye like that. But, reality’s a shithead. He knew that more than anyone. A straight up dick to remind him just how much he missed her and to ask her to stay and to want to kiss her and to watch her leave like that. Shouldn’ta been surprised. She’d been leaving since the first day he met her. Airplanes always taking off in her head.

So, Holder locked up kicking himself for getting so hopeful so fast. That she’d meant something else by coming to apologize. That she meant something else by the way she looked at him. Hugged him tight, hand cupping the back of his neck like she knew he always needed. That she meant she’d listen when he asked her to stay. He was the dumbest person alive to think she’d stay when she didn’t have it in her. Some people just weren’t cut like that.

He came down the steps and saw her ghost. The ghost of her ghost. All those memories. 

But that shit didn’t disappear, even when he closed his eyes. 

She opened her door and it was real, suddenly. The sunlight glinting off the car, the way she smiled at him as he got closer. There was no rain that day. There was no rain.

He stopped in front of her and held his breath. She didn’t say nothing with her mouth, but everything with her eyes. Not that she’d stay forever, but that she’d stay for awhile. For him. 

“Thought I promised I wouldn’t kiss you again,” he said as she stood there, looking at him all wide open like. Eyes on his lips. Smiling. Not almost. Just smiling.

“Oh and you don’t break promises?” she asked. “I seem to recall a promise to get me on a plane.”

“Bad karma,” he said. “I think we’ve had enough of that.”

“Guess I’d better go then,” she said, making no move for the handle nor her keys. Making no moves other than toward him.

“Don’t you dare,” he said and he kissed her. Sunset and clear skies and air and air and air. He kissed her all mouth and tongue and promises he just might break someday but didn’t want to have to. Promises of forever, and of even just a little while. Promises he’d been making since he met her. Donuts and coffee cups and lovin’ her.

_ It’s so easy takin’ care of you, _ he thought.  _ Oh so easy to love you. _ Yeah, Holder knew all ‘bout that.


End file.
